In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of ‘Beaver Believers’ – including scientists, ranchers and passionate citizens – recognises that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish Highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist and Eager has won the 2019 Pen/EO Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing.
